Close Encounters
by Ieyre
Summary: Could-have-beens, what-ifs...these are the chance encounters that might have touched lives in unforeseeable ways. Atlanta, 1868.
1. Charleston, 1848

**A chance meeting in Charleston, circa 1848. **

Free! Free at last!

Strange that after twenty years of life, the happiest he had ever felt was today, the day that his father struck his name from the family Bible and disowned him. After years of half-heartedly trying to gain Stephen's approval, trying to be the son that Stephen Butler wanted, he had given up—in the instant Stephen demanded he do right by Seline Albright and marry her, Rhett knew that he would never be the son his father wanted. Whatever small pleasure that other men got from pleasing their fathers was not worth living the life Stephen had planned for him.

_West Point_, he thought, wryly, _was not worth it._

He would not linger in Charleston long—he'd visit his favorite brothel tonight and get spectacularly drunk, which would have the dual purpose of celebrating his newfound freedom and being one final publicly humiliating shot at his father.

And then, California!

From the first time he heard about the gold fields while at West Point, he'd known he had to see them—uncharted lands, rugged hills, unspoken wealth—just ripe for the taking. All that you needed was enough smarts and guts to reach out and take it, and he had both. Rhett was not one to discard a natural-born talent, and making money would always be one of his hallmark gifts.

Years later, he would admit to himself that a great deal of his zest for making and keeping money stemmed from a desire to prove to his father that he needed neither Stephen nor his inheritance.

He had no long-term plans for the future—he only knew that he wanted to see California. From then on, who knew? Life was an uncharted map.

Rhett Butler was young and reckless and had something to prove. He did not dwell on his heartbroken mother, even at this moment sobbing with grief at the unfixable breach in the family. The image of her face when he left the house was a black spot—he did not want to think of it, he could not, for every time he saw her in his mind's eye the undeniable urge to run far, far away came over him.

He prided himself on looking men square in the eye when dueling, not realizing that there is more than one way to be a coward.

Now, he did not think of his mother. Instead he thought of his father, and the indignant rage on his sire's face put a damned near strut in the son's stride—he was walking on air today.

Rhett decided to visit all the most recognizable and important landmarks in Charleston and tell them all to 'go to hell' before he left the city. It would be the best send-off Charleston had ever had, he thought, strolling down South Battery Street. He barely noticed the boutiques and shops he passed, so engrossed in his own thoughts was he.

Rhett pitied those Southerners who felt tied to a city like Charleston—a city of antiquity, of the past. He was a born trailblazer, meant to forge new paths. The future stretched before him like a blank canvas, waiting to be painted on.

Waiting to be dirtied, he remedied, lecherously. He couldn't wait to get his hands on Teresa, the dark-haired Latin beauty that had caught his eye the first night he'd been back in town since his untimely expulsion. Tonight, Teresa. Tomorrow, the world. Nothing would ever tie him down, or hold him back—Rhett Butler vowed to never again let someone else's wants or desires supercede his own. He thought himself very mature for making this pact—very wise. This desired, self-actualized individualism would be as close to invincible as one could be: his only master, himself.

Lost in the self-indulgent vanity of youth, the lanky 20-year-old did not notice the tiny green ball of energy vaulting towards him until it collided with his leg. He stumbled backward in surprise when a little girl fell down after colliding with him, and was jerked roughly from his wild imaginings of future glory. He looked down instinctually to see what exactly had interrupted his inner monologue.

A pair of large, almond-shaped green eyes stared up at him.

Before he got the chance to examine her any closer, the dark haired little girl looked away, picked herself off the ground and purposefully darted past him into the next shop over.

All at once he realized where he was. He became aware of his surroundings—he was close to the water, South Broad Street. A small child had just run out of the shop in front of him, straight into his leg, fallen down, and run into the next shop over without even stopping to say 'excuse me'. He could not help but laugh self-deprecatingly—here he was, wrapped up in his own importance, and a small child did not think he was worth acknowledging, even after literally running into him!

He expected any minute to see the girl's mother or father come out of the shop she'd come from, looking for her. He strode over to peer into the window, noticing that it was a rather notable Charleston candy emporium—Barton's. Inside the window he saw a stout, bright-eyed man of about fifty, trying in vain to quiet a light brown haired girl of three who was wailing for sweets. While he was shushing her, he bounced a pretty, round-faced baby in his arms. The rest of the store was completely deserted. Rhett immediately deduced that this proud papa had, in his distraction with the younger two, mislaid the third one—there was no other possible parent for her to have.

He decided, then and there, to perform one last good deed for Charleston society and retrieve the little miss. Best to do it quietly and not make the man feel a fool for being incapable of controlling his own children. He wondered, as he doubled back to the shop where he'd seen the girl in the green dress run into, where the mother was in all of this.

The sales clerk looked up from the ledger in front of him when the bell tinkled.

"May I help you…sir?" he asked, not bothering to hide his distaste for this potential customer's garb. Rhett was dressed in the same clothes he'd woken up in, and his dishevelment did not suggest good breeding. He found it amusing thinking about how his younger brother would undoubtedly frequent shops like this in only a few years with their father, picking out waistcoats and suits and hats and ties together.

He liked the idea of having the clothes, just not the dignified ritual his father would undoubtedly turn it into.

"Where's the little girl that ran in here?"

"She's in the other room," he gestured to a smaller side room, presumably designed for dressing, "She said her father was going to come in to be fitted and she had run ahead to see the store. She's an awfully pretty girl, you ought to be proud." He smiled indulgently.

_That little liar!_

He was impressed—her father was not coming to be fitted at all—and the store clerk had fallen for it.

"She's not my daughter," he remarked, dryly, "Tell me, do I look old enough to have a daughter that age?"

Not bothering to wait for an answer, he strolled into the dressing room.

Sitting on one of the chairs placed along the side of the fitting areas was the little dark haired girl who'd run into him before. She was clad in a knee-length emerald skirt, and she was swinging her legs back and forth on the chair in such a way that her little crinoline petticoat was peaking out above her little black buckled shoes. Beneath her poke bonnet were those large green eyes he'd noticed earlier. The rest of her face was equally arresting, from the dark lashes that framed the jade orbs to the little pointed chin.

While she hummed to herself, with one hand she was artlessly removing her dark hair from the ribbons that held the fashionable plaits constricting it. The other hand was holding the largest piece of fudge Rhett had ever seen, and her cherry-red mouth was currently occupied with taking a rather large bite out of it. Her eyes were focused on the chocolate—clearly not noticing that she was no longer alone in her little sanctuary.

Altogether, it was the most delightfully charming picture he'd ever seen.

"You know, you should really introduce yourself when you run into people. Or at least say hello," he said, after watching her for a moment. She yelped with surprise, and he almost laughed outright at the way she immediately stuck the fudge behind her back guiltily and stopped dislodging her hairstyle, which now hung half undone, the left side a mass of black ringlets while the right was a still primly braided.

"Who're you?" she asked, rudely. He now saw that she couldn't be any older than five years old.

"Well now," he grinned, stepping into the room, "That's not a very nice thing to say to someone you've already met—or at least, someone who wanted to meet you."

The green eyes, narrowed with suspicion, alighted with pride at the compliment. Rhett's gift for perception did him credit—he could see that this was a girl used to being petted and adored. That would help him get her to come with him without a scene—strangely, though, he found himself growing more and more interested in finding out why she had run in here in the first place.

"I'm not to speak to strangers," she said, mechanically, as if it had been told to her so many times that the meaning had all but been lost for the words.

"We wouldn't be strangers if you'd said hello to me before, out there on the street," he said, not in the least bit patronizingly. He never liked being talked to by adults as a child—at least, most adults, for his parents' friends always spoke down to him. One of his many goals as a newly established free agent in the world was never to speak down to children, who were, as he could still recall—not being far from childhood himself—people too. "Why were you in such a hurry, anyway?"

He saw the little arms unconsciously slip behind her and clench the piece of fudge, coupled with a guilty, furrowed brow and biting of the lip.

"I saw your father in the shop with two other little girls, who I assume are your sisters…why did you want to leave your family in such a hurry, hm?" He wondered if it was a bit mean, teasing the child this way—but she didn't seem to be close to crying, as her sister was. In fact, her squirming suggested there was an escape plan in the works. The little cherub-faced girl had lit a spark of interest in him, and he was curious to hear what she'd say.

"Sue's a crybaby. She was bein' noisy," was the short reply he got. Her accent, he noted, was not Charleston—it sounded like it could be Georgian.

"Oh? So it wouldn't have anything to do with—" he artlessly walked over to her and grabbed the candy from behind her back, "—This?"

The pseudo-innocent expression he'd seen on the little face fled the instant he touched her prize.

"Hey! That's mine," she cried, indignantly, "Give it back."

"Before I do, I must ask," he held it above her head, "Miss, did you steal this fudge? Be honest and I'll return it to you."

She stopped jumping in the air to get the candy and stared up at him, defiantly. He could see the moral dilemma on her face—she was weighing the choice between admitting that she'd, as he amusedly suspected, run out of the store with fudge that had not been purchased, or not saying anything and risk not getting it back at all.

"No, I didn't steal it," she finally answered, "Now, can I have it back, sir?"

When she smiled, her cheeks dimpled charmingly.

"I said I'd give it back to you when you gave me an _honest_ answer. And I think you ran out of that store _sans_ paying. Tell me, is that so?"

She stamped her foot in frustration at him and he wondered if he was about to be assaulted by a small girl for the _second _time in the same day.

"There was a whole pile of them sitting there an' Pa said if he bought one for me than Mother would scold him for spoilin' dinner—but he promised me I'd get a treat for having tea with Auntie 'Lalie and Auntie Pauline," was her roundabout way of answering in the affirmative. He could see she was angry that her lie had been seen through—her eyes gleamed with a petulant, childish rage, somewhat dampened by a shamefaced look.

"Well then," he handed the stolen fudge back to her, "That makes perfect sense to me."

Greedily, she snatched it back from his hands and settled back into the little chair she'd been nestled on when he entered the room. Rhett marveled at this little creature's moral compass—or lack thereof.

"You promise not to tell Mother?" was her sincere question to him, between gulps.

Ah, well—not completely gone. Still, he found himself strangely admiring her nerve at such a grand theft—he didn't think he started pinching candy from the store until he was at least eight or nine.

"I promise," vowed her bemused companion, carefully removing the pile of fine linen handkerchiefs from the chair next to her and settling in, "We'll just wait until you're finished and take you back to the Barton's—" He was fairly certain Daddy dearest had not yet managed the monumental task of calming down the other girl. "—And no one will be the wiser."

Satisfied with this explanation, she devoured her chocolate without comment. Her companion found he could not take his eyes off her—she was the first person he'd seen in a very long time that just did what they wanted without being held back by the limitations of society. It seemed a strange thought, but as he watched her guilelessly munch on the fudge, he felt an odd sort of kinship with the miniature thief.

"So, little girl, do you have a name?"

"I'm not little. I'm almost five years old," was the stubborn answer through a mouthful of candy. She gulped, "'Sides, you're little, too. You're still a boy."

"Why am I still a boy?"

"Men have beards, like my Pa," She pointed at his clean-shaven face, "You don't have a beard or a mous-a muos-" She stumbled over the large word.

"A moustache?" he supplied.

"Uh-huh. One of those." She was entirely matter-of-fact in her understanding of adulthood. "You need one to be a man. Mr. Tarleton and Mr. Wilkes has one, too."

Rhett found his hand unconsciously raising to his smooth face. Why _didn't_ he have a beard or moustache? All distinguished men had…was he actually taking advice on this matter from a four-year-old girl?

"You aren't going to tell me your name?" he persisted with the original question.

"I…" she looked up into his dark eyes, childishly appraising him, "My real name is Katie."

_Katie…_Somehow, it seemed like too common a name for such an uncommon child.

"Your real name?"

"Uh-huh. But it's…not my favorite name," she whispered conspiratorially, "I don't know you well enough to tell you _that_."

Her _favorite_ name? What did that mean?

"Your…favorite name?" he echoed.

She bobbed her head up and down sagely.

"It's the one I like. But I only tell people Mother or Pa knows," she thought for a moment, "Or people who I like lots."

"Well, maybe one of these days you'll like me enough to tell me."

He didn't know why he said it—he would never see this little girl again, because he was leaving Charleston forever and she didn't even live here in the first place. He never said things like that—it was a stupid, sentimental thing to say. As if there would be another day to see her…

"Maybe." She grinned up at him cheekily, and then raised her unoccupied hand to finish the arduous task of taking her hair out of the tight plaits it was in. Her tiny, stubby fingers, coated with fudge, were having a difficult time untying the double-knotted emerald ribbon that held the plait on the right side of her dark head. He observed her struggling to untangle it from her hair for a minute, before his hand shot out in frustration.

"Here, let me do it." He deftly untied it in an instant. She jerked her head away from his, irritably.

"I don't need _your _help," she whined, impetuously. Rhett found himself becoming inordinately annoyed at his efforts being brushed off so carelessly. Katie was a stubborn one, he could see that—wouldn't a normal child have welcomed being assisted?

"Fine," he said, coolly, as she finished unbraiding her hair. It hung in charming little ringlets now, framing the chocolate-covered face perfectly. "Why were you taking it out, anyhow?"

"The plaits hurt. Mammy put them in because I'm supposed to look nice for my Aunties," she pulled a face, "But they're boring and I don't want to look nice for them."

He guffawed at her candor—from the mouth's of babes, as they said!

"Why are you laughing at me?"

"I like people who tell the truth, that's all. I'm not laughing at you, I'm er, just very happy."

Her grimace suggested she didn't believe him.

"So you're visiting your aunts, are you?"

"Uh-huh. Mother's with them right now, and we're going back to see them soon."

She finished her fudge at the same time she finished her speech—Rhett was amazed at how quickly and easily she'd managed to polish off a piece of candy that seemed about as large as she was. Having not taken much care while she was gorging herself, rather prominent brown marks were smeared all over her rosy cheeks. Lackadaisically, she attempted to wipe it off her mouth with the back of her hand—to no avail.

"How'd I look?" was her question, a trace of coquettishness that indicated a future as a belle in the works.

"I think you missed a spot," Rhett answered, not bothering to keep the amusement out of his voice. For all his attempts to show children as much respect as he could, he found himself wanting to tease this one more and more. Perhaps all people were meant to be teased a bit—certainly her reactions were wildly entertaining, and that was worth it. "Here, let me get that for you…"

He dug through his pocket for a handkerchief, but the only thing he came up with was a handful of lint. Suddenly, he noticed the pile of linens he'd deposited on the floor earlier—including a very fine selection of colored men's handkerchiefs. An idea struck him.

_If it's a good enough method for Katie, it's good enough for me._

He glanced through the doorway at the sales clerk, before grabbing the steel gray silk striped handkerchief off the top of the pile and handing it to Katie, with a flourish. She giggled at the overwrought gesture.

"Are you supposed to take that?" she asked, in a voice of scandalized delight.

"I won't tell anyone if you don't," he smiled down at her, and gently began to help her remove the stubborn marks from her face with the little piece of cloth. His hand brushed her smooth cheek and a tendril of raven-black hair grazed his thumb.

_Her hair is so soft._

"There you go," he said, gently, cleaning off the last of the muddy residue from her petite hands, "Clean as a whistle."

He pocketed the now-soiled handkerchief, figuring that the store probably wouldn't want it anymore—so why not appropriate it? He was nothing if not practical—and immoral.

"Thank you."

Katie plopped down onto the floor and gave him a very clumsy curtsy, her skirts touching the ground unseemly. He bowed politely back at her.

"You're very welcome, Miss Katie—now, shall I escort you back to your father?"

"I guess Pa'll worry," she answered, a trace of guilt in her voice, "So I should get back."

She skittered out of the room, Rhett close on her heels. The chubby little four-year-old legs clumsily skipped out of the store, and her twenty-year-old rescuer followed merrily on her heels, waving jauntily at the store clerk with the own stolen merchandise as they passed.

In the bright, mid-afternoon sun outside the shop, the gold detailing on Katie's dress sparkled brightly—clearly this visit to the aunts was a formal occasion—but it did not sparkle as brightly as the eyes of the child who had successfully duped her father and charmed an accomplice into the bargain. Said accomplice found her joy infectious—as good as he'd been feeling before she'd stumbled into his path, his mood now was downright giddy. He was on the verge of whistling a merry tune as he accompanied the little moral reprobate back to her father and out of his life again.

"Well, Katie, I guess this is it." He felt oddly wistful at handing her back to her father. As his last good deed in Charleston, letting go of the girl was akin the last bond he had with the city snapping. He could not explain where this emotion, so alien to him not twenty minutes before, should have come from. "You'd better run inside—looks as though your father is searching the store for you."

The stout man was calling for Katie, now, and as Rhett peered through the glass he could also hear his voice, faintly—was that an Irish brogue?

"Well, thank you, sir," she curtsied again, before turning to run inside Barton's.

"Wait a minute," he stopped her, "I have a name, you know. Don't you want to thank me by name?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"If I know your name, I'll have to write you a thank you letter."

Honest to the end—he had to laugh. He'd never heard a more benign and selfish reason to not want to know someone's name. If indeed he'd ever heard someone refuse to hear an introduction at all.

"I don't expect a thank you letter—but do let me give you a show of my esteem, Katie," he proclaimed, "Hold out your hand."

She did so, cautiously, and Rhett brushed a gentlemanly kiss on the back of her tiny hand. He looked up to see that her face had gone about as red as a cherry tomato—he grinned and winked, and the girl's response was to yank her hand jerkily out of his, embarrassed.

"You're strange. I never met anyone like you," she said.

"You've got a long way ahead of you, Miss…but if it's worth anything, I've never met anyone exactly like you, either."

Brimming with pride, her mouth broke into a smile.

"We're going to be here till Tuesday—will you be here tomorrow?"

Tomorrow…tomorrow was the day he left this place for good, and started a new life, free from promises, attachments and duty. Free from everything that held people back in the short time they were given on this earth.

"We'll see about tomorrow, Katie," he said, finally, "You go in and see your Pa, he'll be worried about you."

"If you're here tomorrow, I'll tell you my favorite name!" And without so much as a goodbye, she ran into the shop, green skirt flying behind her. As he looked in the glass, he could see the back of a straw poke bonnet go flying towards the Irishman, and he glimpsed the beginning of a gentle scolding before tearing himself away from the glass and continuing his final tour of the city he was born in.

His heart was a little less buoyant than it had been before—he felt, somehow, like a little bit of his freedom had been unwittingly stolen from him. There was no explanation for it—Rhett's excitement had seemed unending, but now it was…dampened.

He shook his head and tried to put any and all dark thoughts out of his mind—he would not allow chance encounters with families make him think at all about the merits of settling down, of family…of what having children might be like. Adventure still called, and he was still ready for it—learning Katie's 'favorite name' would be a childish diversion, anyhow.

That night, looking in the dank mirror at Madame Farelli's house of ill repute, he wondered what he would look like with a moustache—not thinking at all about who had planted the seed of the idea in his head.


	2. Havana, 1863

**I've been working on this thing for way too long, I just had to get it out there. This will give you an idea of how completely different every chapter in this thing will be. There are some historical details thrown in there if anyone is curious (Narcisco Lopez, for one). I'd really appreciate feedback on this bad boy, thanks!**

"Run away with me, Maria."

It wasn't the first time she'd been asked to do just that, and it wouldn't be the last. The offer from the dark-haired, almost Spanish-looking young American who'd been her lover for the last two months wasn't without attractions—in fact, this would be the closest she'd ever come to absconding.

She had her pride, though.

Maria Marquez was a Spanish import to the unrefined Cuban city of Havana. Married off to a wealthy sugar plantation owner, coupled with the 20,000 _real de plata _dowry she'd brought her husband was her rare beauty and charm. Both of which attributes had not gone unnoticed in the seven years she'd been here, evidenced by the numerous lovers she'd taken up. She was a refined woman, one who attended finishing school in England which had given her a taste of both Shakespeare and Anglo-Saxon men.

The minute Rhett saw her, he knew he was in love.

In the last five years, he'd seen more of the world than many men would see in a lifetime—just as he planned to. He struck gold in California. Not literally, of course, only that he nearly mastered the art of high-stakes gambling while he was there. The cock-sure son of a Southern gentleman amassed several thousand dollars before losing it all on a momentous bluff, a pair of fours in a game of high stakes poker. Departing from San Francisco, he made his way through the bars and barmaids of Mexico, picking up Spanish along the way. He rambled about Central and South America for a few years, honing his skills at a myriad of dubious occupations—including gunrunning, seduction and sailing. Which was how he ended up here, in Havana—by hopping a ship in Panama bound for the exotic Spanish colony.

With as aristocratic an upbringing as he had, Rhett could almost seamlessly transform from an unshaven, unkempt sailor to a ne'r-do-well soldier of fortune. He was both, granted, but one was more of a façade than the other. The twenty-five-year old man (no longer a boy) had already begun down a path of calculated deception. Early into life he learned that he could easily get what he wanted by playing whatever part was necessary. Now, out on his own, he altered his back-story and appearance merely for the fun of confusing and deceiving people—a dangerous game, but the kind that he thrived on.

Maria and he first crossed paths on a fine spring day in April at a large, open-air market in the heart of the city. As mistress of her husband's house, one of the duties she enjoyed the most was selecting the choicest meats, fruits and vegetables for the Marquez table. She mostly enjoyed the task because it allowed her freedom to leave their stucco mansion with comparatively little chaperoning.

Rhett, who'd been exploring the market along with the rest of the city, spotted her choosing melons and knew for the first time what it was to be 'star struck'. The aquiline nose, the olive complexion, her dark hair and eyes—she was lovely. The pale yellow gown she wore clung to her skin in an exotically beguiling way. Not even her serene, aloof expression could turn him away from her.

She'd been taken with him from the first moment he strode over to her in that market and struck up conversation—in spite of being several years older than him, and far more experienced in the ways of actual love affairs, Rhett had a natural ability to charm women, he was handsome and bright and interesting. What started as mild flirtation in a public place turned into a several-month long affair.

Maria knew that the young man in front of her, despite his many experiences gambling about the world, was woefully ignorant on matters of the heart. She was the first woman he'd probably ever slept with more than three times—she was his first real lover. And now that Javier suspected that the young American he hired to work on the plantation had had an ulterior motive, the affair had reached its inevitable outcome, termination.

Rhett, however, did not seem to think so.

"Oh, Rhett, cariño…" she said in smooth Spanish, "There's no need to flatter me. I am very sure of your esteem and sorry to see you go this way. But don't do this."

"I'm serious, Maria." The always-laughing, always-teasing dark haired young man in front of her said, "We'd have fun together—like we do now."

So young, so careless…so completely out of his depth. Running away from the security and society here would be the farthest thing from fun. But Rhett wouldn't see that, he would only see that she enjoyed his company and reason that his company was better than Javier's. It was his self-centeredness, too, that fueled this speech—Maria couldn't tell if he was simply a callous youth, or if this streak of obstinate pride and self-involvement was a signature trait of his.

"Rhett, I'm married. I have a life here."

They were in her rooms, the intimate parlors that her husband had designed for the purpose of allowing her to entertain her female friends. Little did he know what they were actually being used for…or perhaps he knew more than he let on. Javier Marquez, a coffee merchant of some renown, made no secret of his own amorous wanderings. There's was a marriage of convenience, for Javier had needed a bride to keep up appearances and for an heir. She was one of the few people that knew her husband did not prefer the fairer sex in his bed—and so Javier would keep it a secret, and the two went about their affairs with utmost discretion. Neither he nor his wife had a jealous nature, making them well-suited as wedded partners.

The half-dressed man in front of her, staring up at her from the floor while he put his boots back on and she wrapped herself up more tightly in her shawl from the vantage point on the delicate couch, could be very jealous. Their time together had taught her that Rhett did not allow himself to care very much about things or people often, but that when he did, he attached himself tightly. He was possessive of what he viewed as belonging to him, and he would manipulate any situation to get something he wanted.

In fact, she was certain that he had manipulated the situation before them now. Rhett had allowed himself to be caught out because he hated being stuck in limbo with his lover— sneaking around, knowing she had a husband to attend to. He was not in the business of sharing, and he had forced Maria's hand, she knew that. Now she would have to make the choice to remain in Havana or go with him.

"But what does that matter, if you don't love him? He doesn't love you—"

"Neither do you."

There. Before he got the chance to tell her, she'd spoken what she knew to be true from the first.

"Yes, I do," he insisted, getting up from the floor and pacing in front of her like a caged feral animal. His eyebrows were stubbornly furrowed, "That's why I want you to come away with me, be with me—we'll explore the world together." He stopped pacing then, and his eyes fell to the window, to the distance, to the horizon. Maria could see them from where she was sitting, because they were the first thing she'd noticed about him when she saw him in the market; their depths were impenetrable. She did not envy the woman who tried to understand him, for he was a complex man—his eyes showed that. Right then they gleamed at the promise of more adventure, at more prizes and surprises to be won from life. For a split second Maria wondered if refusing him was an even bigger folly than going with him.

Then a life with Rhett Butler flashed before her eyes, and she knew it was not to be.

"If you loved me, you would know that isn't what I want. I am not adventurous, like you—I like being rich, being comfortable. I like having someone take care of me."

"_I_ would take care of you."

"You would, but you'd resent me for not being able to do it myself. I fit into this world, cariño; I like the structure. I wouldn't want the life you have."

For her, time spent with him had been a glimpse into another world. The stories he told her, about gold speculation, being shot at, peasants' revolts and being thrown out of school for drunken revelry—they were the tales of someone who lived life to the fullest, a thrill seeker—someone who, for all his best efforts to the contrary, felt very deeply. She knew he did, from the few times he spoke about his father. The harsh, cruel words belied a son who had never fully healed from paternal rejection.

_He feels too strongly, _she thought, _He feels more deeply than I ever could._

"When did you first fall in love with me?"

The question threw him off guard—so much so that it took him a moment to answer.

"When I first saw you across the market."

Even before he finished speaking, she could tell that the words did not have his usual self-assuredness. He seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her.

"What was I doing?" she pressed.

"…I don't remember," was his faint response. "I just remember that you were beautiful."

"Cariño, that's not love. That's lust, or attraction…it takes more than a pretty face to inspire love."

"You're more than a 'pretty face' to me," he insisted, "You're intelligent, resourceful, you're practical—you're everything I've ever valued in a woman."

His protestations touched her—in spite of her certainty that he did not love her, she could also see that his pride, something he had inordinate amounts of, was on the line. This was a gamble for him.

"I don't have everything you value. I have a few attributes to compliment my looks, but I'm afraid that Maria Marquez is not enough like _you_ to ever capture your heart completely."

That was the heart of the problem, the reason why he and Maria could not really make a go of it. Rhett needed someone like him. He was one of the few people in the world with complete confidence in who he was, and somewhere in the world was a woman with a complimentary spirit—a woman who he would not offer to take with him on adventures—a woman was enough of an adventure in herself that she could draw him to her, make him go against his very nature for her, against his restless desire to always look for new expeditions into the unknown.

His feelings for Maria would not be enough to ever dissuade him from acting on his own desires.

"We have plenty in common—"

"We are alike in some respects. We have a similar education and background. We have the same taste in art and music and respect each other's intellect. We enjoy ourselves in bed together—"

"What else could there possibly be to _love_?" he burst out, furiously cutting her off from her speech.

Calm, cool and even serene—that was how she looked at him as she flatly rejected his request to come with him. Why didn't she show emotions, he thought—heartbreak, anger, _anything_. God, was there no _passion _in her?

"Tell me, Rhett—have you ever been unable to sleep because you could not stop thinking about someone? Honestly."

"No."

_No_…it was as she suspected. Back in Spain, Maria had loved a man. She was that woman, so giddy in her love that she was like a child filled with the expectation of a thousand Christmases. At the same time, she was filled with the fearful trepidation of a hundred wedding nights—dread and joy and commingled unnaturally within her when she fell in love, and there had been sleepless nights.

The breezy, unplanned affair with the man in front of her had been too easy for it to be love.

"Would you ever risk your own safety for me or anyone else?"

"It depends on how much I stood to gain by it."

Flippant to the last. Of course gains mattered to him—of course. He didn't understand love at all.

But he would, one day.

"Have you ever thought that you'd be willing to die for someone?"

"Of course not!" His anger clouded the point she was making. There is something innately self-destructive about loving another person, and his inherent self-preservation made him a natural enemy of the treacherous emotion. "I'm not that unselfish, and anyone who thinks they are is lying to themselves."

The bitterness in his voice was apparent, but she could tell that it came from being denied something he wanted, not something he needed or craved.

"You've never been in love, clearly."

"I'm glad. It sounds like a damned foolish idea and one that I hope never to endure," he said, dryly. "Assuming your requirements are correct, I doubt I ever will."

In an almost mothering gesture, she alighted from her sitting place and crossed the room to the window where he stood, staring broodingly out the window.

"Look at me—" In an uncharacteristic display of force, she raised her hand to his chin and jerked his head to face her. So taken aback was he that he did not resist the abrasive act. Resistance would have been his instinctual reaction, but he was still smarting from the perceived rejection. "—Rhett Butler, if anyone on this earth was destined to be in love, it's you."

She caressed his hard cheek, browned from the toil he'd endured in the sun, working for her husband. She wished, for his sake as much as her own, that she was that woman.

"I can see her now," she closed her eyes, and the faint image of the sort of woman he'd fall in love with floated into her mind. Those characteristics he so valued in himself were oddly magnified in a woman—she would be larger than life, whoever she was. "She's strong, very strong. Much stronger than me. She'll go out and get what she wants, like you—that's why you'll love her, when you find her."

He turned his head away from her again, uninterested in her imaginings of his future.

"Is that why you don't love me? Because there's something _unalike_ about us?"

How could she explain it to him? There was a part of her that did love him, or could—but it was far too small to be sustained by feeling alone. As for his own, she knew they were shallow at best—he was blinded by her beauty and the novelty of an affair with an educated, glamorous woman. The daughter of wealth and privilege she had been born and the wife of affluence and the Cuban sugar trade she had become had no place in his life. Vanity and pride blinded him to that now.

More than that, though, she was afraid of actually losing her heart to him. He would give a woman hell with his mercurial moods and that hedonistic grin of his—she had never met a man so young and yet so adept at masking what he was thinking and, more importantly, what he felt. She herself was good at reading people, but Rhett in clumsier hands would be a dizzying enigmatic puzzle of a lover. No amount of love was worth getting tangled in those layers—at least not for her.

"You fight—you're a fighter, Rhett," she said, slowly, carefully, "And I know you'll sail out of Havana and live to fight another day. I'm not a fighter. I like to watch the fight and place bets on the fight, but I've never wanted to be the one taking the hits." Sometimes, when Javier was away and he would stay the whole night, they'd play poker together after making love and he would tell her about his sporadic professional gambling. That was where he had learned to mask himself flawlessly, and she in turn impressed him with her own poker face—the one she acquired in finishing school, back in Europe.

The gambling analogy would not be lost on him—he'd always known her to be cautious and shrewd when it came to a real risky hand, unlike him, the daring bluffer. His eyebrows rose at her words, so she spelled it out for him as best she could.

"I'm can't fight—for you or for anyone. Not even myself," she smiled sadly at his back. "I've always preferred counting my losses and getting on with it to long, drawn-out conflicts. I abhor the idea of getting wounded in a fight you're going to lose anyway—I never could understand fighting for a lost cause. Don't hold it against me, I just don't hate losing the way you do. We can't help our nature, can we?" She felt like him, half talking in riddles—but the words kept pouring forth. The more she spoke, the wider the gap between her and Rhett grew.

"You need someone who fights. Someone who's willing to fight for you, or against you," she laughed, "Probably both. I'm not that woman, and never will be."

She withdrew the hand that had fallen from his face to his shoulder, and he turned back around to stare at her with his bottomless black orbs. His hard face softened with the dawning of the truth. From her own dark brown eyes, tears began to well up—uncontrollably. She was losing the small bit of power she might have had over him, the ghost of his heart was slipping away from her, leaving only the shadow of memories and the naked, hard reality that she'd been right all along. He had only _thought_ he loved her.

"I'm sorry I thought you were."

As assured as she was that this was the right decision, Maria could not help but turn away from him. _He _had brought this to an end, and not in the way that either one of them really wanted. Tears fell as she felt his hand brush the back of her shoulder, in an almost comforting gesture. A cool breeze floated into the room a minute later, when she finally turned around to an open window and empty space.

He'd left her.

The next day, at dawn, he showed up to the duel Javier challenged him to for Maria's honor. Always needing to make an exit with as much flair as his entrances, he proved the superior shot by wounding her husband in the shoulder and walking away unscathed. He brought no second. Having wounded both a man and his reputation in Havana (for Javier Marquez was a well-liked man, and Rhett did not savor staying in a town with so many enemies), at least for a spell, the following day he hopped yet another ship for parts unknown. Maria's husband was furious with her, more for her inability to keep her affairs discrete and making him the fool than anything else. But, with time the memories of his humiliation faded, his wound healed (why had Rhett not outright killed him? Had Maria not been worth a dead husband?), and the scandal blew over. Havana was a kinder town than many for scandals, for it was a rough place where any wrongdoing was quickly replaced as a topic of gossip when something worse came along. Maria was certain her extramarital affair had gotten out of Cuba, but after a year it was all but lost in a sea of more pressing events.

She never forgot her brief affair, but she did not mourn it, however enjoyable it had been. Maria recalled the charming American who she had shared a bed with for those few months with a nostalgic fondness. Where was he now? She often wondered. There had never been love between them, but she _was_ intrigued by him and was curious if his passionate drive and intelligence had ever come to anything.

She would not see him again until 1863, nearly a decade after they parted.

She was browsing in one of the finest women's' dress shops in Havana. Nearly forty years old now, her dark hair streaked with gray, Maria's beauty had faded a little over time—but she was proud and satisfied by the number of intelligent and refined men she'd bedded over the years. She had once been beautiful enough to inspire love at a single glance, and the Latin beauty had been lucky enough in life to appreciate the luxury she had been afforded. Disappointment in love at an early age had made her a realistic, if not a particularly passionate woman when it came to matters such as this.

As she stood there she had the unmistakable inkling that she was being watched while carelessly browsing through yards of the most luxuriant fabrics in Cuba, all imported from Paris and Milan.

Turning to the direction she felt the gaze coming from, she met the eyes of one of the most elegantly dressed young men she'd ever come across. He was also perusing the clothing, and she could see from his own that this as of yet unknown gentleman could afford it. He wore a wide-brimmed gray panama hat and matching gray pinstriped suit—finally tailored to his rather unusual build, broad shouldered with a narrowly tapered waist—and a light blue silk cravat. Station-conscious Maria could see he reeked of both taste and class, and there was a curious mixture of old money and new in his mien. His dark hair and complexion made him difficult to place—he could as easily be Spanish or Cuban as anything else. As he gazed at her, levelly, she felt sure there was some sort of recognition in those dark eyes. But where from?

Before she had the chance to ponder it, he daringly stepped forward and bowed gracefully.

"Mrs. Marquez, I presume." The stranger took her hand where it flopped uselessly at her side, so taken aback was she, and kissed it. She stepped back a little in shock at his presumption and found a pair of teasing, dark eyes looking up at her from beneath heavy black brows. Not able to conceal her shock, she let out a small gasp as his entire head rose and revealed the full countenance to her—a very familiar one at that. His mouth quirked in amusement at her inevitable recognition.

"Oh dear Mary, Mother of God—_Rhett?_"

He laughed at her exclamation and she knew she was right—it was him. That was the same broad baritone laugh she remembered, or at least similar to it. There was a harsher edge to it, now, a mocking quality that was unfamiliar to her. She felt a pang of embarrassment at her reaction to him, for she got the unpleasant sensation that he had enjoyed shocking her more than anything else, and that his laughter was of a more derisive bent than it was sincere amused.

He would not have so easily laughed at her when she knew him before, which proved that there was some glaring disparity between the young man she knew and the one standing in front of her now. When they were lovers years before she was his teacher and guide as well—now he was a wealthy man of the world and she guessed from his devil may care advances he had even less respect for the world at large than he had before.

The last traces of boyhood that he carried nine years before had completely faded from his visage, leaving behind something entirely alien to her. While he was once a carefree and luckless young gentleman, he was now obviously very successful and prosperous—she could see he had changed, evolved. Now in his mid-30s, he was a man.

"Yes, it is I!" he chuckled, "I knew I recognized you when you walked in the store, but when I saw you picking through those fabrics with such care, I was certain. It's been a long time—" Suddenly he looked around, exaggeratedly, to see if they were alone, "Perhaps I should say goodbye, Mrs. Marquez—I realize we did not part in the most-" He picked his next words carefully, "—_fortuitous _of circumstances. I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with Havana _en large_."

She laughed and waved her hand, carelessly, too pleased to see him to care.

"Oh, Rhett, that was years ago, you're more arrogant than I remember if you think your exploits here would remain fresh gossip for as long as _that_." He rolled his eyes self-reprovingly, "Besides, I don't imagine that anyone would recognize the Rhett Butler of then as the same man he is now. You look completely different! You must tell me all you've done—"

"What about your husband, Maria?"

"Oh, I don't suppose you've been much in Cuba, these last few years," She smiled sadly at him, "I'm the widow Marquez, now."

He tipped his hat to her, this time in seriousness.

"My condolences to you, _senora_. I've been in Boston and New York and London the last couple of years, mostly…how long?"

She gestured to her dark gray dress.

"Awhile, as you can see from my colors—three years in November. It was yellow fever."

She sighed wistfully.

"You know I always thought him a good man, and a fair employer—despite our obvious conflict of interests." He dropped the seriousness to grin at her brazenly. "That was why I aimed so poorly during our duel."

"I knew you must've—he was more irate at not being able to get a clean shot before you nicked him than anything else!" She laughed a little at the memory of her husband. She was never in love with Javier, but there was genuine fondness and attachment from years of living together. She was still sorry that she was incapable of giving him any children. "I miss him, I really do."

Rhett pondered her words deeply for a moment. His face was a cool, bland, blank—it was an expression he'd been perfecting his entire adult life, and one he'd now mastered. She had no idea what he was thinking. A thought struck him, finally, and he smiled merrily and pointed her out of the shop and onto the bustling boulevard.

"That makes you one of two widows of my acquaintance that misses their late husband," His eyes danced unconsciously with amusement as they strolled together, the intimacy of their former relationship bringing them back to a mellow sort of fondness and the ability to speak freely, "And she's been widowed a little over two years, so she has less excuse than you do."

"Perhaps this acquaintance of yours didn't love her husband—many women are forced into marriage, myself included. We can't all be expected to fall in love with them."

"That's very true, and if she'd been forced into it, I'd be inclined to agree. As it is, no one forced anything on her. My—_friend_ chose to marry a boy I'm fairly certain she didn't even like," he said, with certainty, "And he enlisted and died at camp less than two months later. I don't suppose you've heard much about our little war down here in Cuba, have you?"

He deftly turned the subject from the 'other' widow to the world at large—and the War between the states. They went into one of the many anonymous cafes in downtown, and he told her about his life since the last time they'd met. He was a captain now—Captain Butler fit him, for he looked now more than ever like the Spanish buccaneers she'd seen in her storybooks as a little girl. They discussed Europe, where he'd gone after Cuba, a place whose wealth, culture, and beauty had attracted him when she first described it to him as a young man. Now, older, he was telling her about it—Rhett had now traveled to more cities than she had. Not that it surprised her—he was an adventurer, wasn't he? She had barely given travel a second thought since Javier died, so comfortable was she in her large _mansion._

He mentioned several women in several locations, knowing that she had a predilection herself for discussing old flames with new one and visa-versa. She was elegant and dignified, except when it came to the subject of sex—on that there had never been boundaries, though she always spoke to him about it with some detachment. He had no qualms about discussing his various _paramours_ with her, and she was amused that the man before her could ever even have convinced himself that he was in love with her.

Cynicism radiated off of the man before her in the café—she doubted he believed in anything, let alone as idealistic a concept as love. Nothing seemed to have held him down, thus far, from the way he described his life—he traveled where he wanted, when he wanted, and his friendships were fleeting and based more on mutual disregard for polite society than anything else. He mockingly joked about how little he cared that his native South was inevitably going to crumble—only that he make money into the bargain.

She wondered if she had just imagined that passionate soul in him, with how detached he was in telling her about the death of his own countryman—or if it was an elaborate mask. At first she believed herself entirely wrong in her earlier assessment of the type of man he'd become—but as they talked longer, she found a certain restlessness in his manner that bespoke of something deeper than his pockets bothering him.

Every so often, when she was speaking to him, she saw his eyes wander off somewhere and stare into space, not dreamily, but with some unspoken, intense longing. After only a second or so, he'd remember himself and resume a tight focus on her, laughing and answering her questions in the most appropriate way.

Natural curiosity made her want to know just what he was thinking of in those few seconds.

Talk turned to the war, and to his natural success running the blockade for the Confederacy. Apparently he'd been to Havana several times in his Iron Triange-esque circuit of the Atlantic, but never, he assured her, had in be in port long enough to inquire after her.

"I'm curious, Maria, to hear what you blue-blooded Cubans think of our little war. I've heard all about the French and English opinions on the subject, but I know so few Cubans that can actually read, let alone discuss the world at large, that this page is completely blank." He leaned back in his chair and took a long drag from one of the Cuban cigarillos she introduced to him, years before.

"Oh, you know Cubans—they only think of the world in relation to themselves. Cuba thinks that she caused your 'little war'."

"Oh? How does she figure that?"

"Well, it is generally thought here that because Narcisco López failed so spectacularly in his attempt to use expansion to continue slavery, he gave your South the idea of secession as an alternative." She smiled knowingly at the arrogance of Cubans. Narcisco López had died before Rhett came to Cuba, but he would known about him because he recruited Southern politicians to help him wrest independence from Spain. Rhett seemed amused by her answer.

"What a very Cuban answer—and perhaps there is some truth to it. I wonder if General Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis wish that they'd helped Lopez when he asked them to—then he might still be around to return the favor now. Hell, they might not even be fighting a war."

He blew a smoke ring as if to signal his indifference to the whole affair.

"I'm sure there are a few stolid matrons in Atlanta who'd love to here this interpretation of the trials of our great Confederacy. Perhaps I'll mention it when I return next month."

At that moment she realized—there it was. _Atlanta_. Rhett had mentioned several cities he visited during the blockade, but something about the very word seemed to distract him. She's heard of it, but only as a little town that had grown up in the last decade—he was from Charleston, a city of history and class, and so what he might be thinking of in Atlanta intrigued her.

"Atlanta? That's in Georgia, isn't it, Rhett?" she asked, innocently.

"Yes. I'm surprised you've even heard of it, it's a fairly new town that popped up less than twenty years ago."

He was cool, as if the subject was of no note and he hoped she would find it uninteresting and move on.

"How often do you take a cargo there?"

"A little more often than Charleston or Savannah."

She could tell that this was the truth, and what's more, that he was annoyed that it was the truth.

"It's fairly far inland, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Being such an intelligent businessman, I wonder at the wisdom of going so far inland to deliver supplies—especially a backwater like Atlanta." She smiled serenely at his apparent loss of good humor. "Surely it's less dangerous to stick to the port cities."

"Certainly it is, especially with the Union pressing after Chickamauga. I suspect Atlanta will be taken, in time, but perhaps the danger that city's in is what keeps me coming back to it. The thrill of it." He idly flicked his cigar.

"There must be something more to it than that. If you really wanted danger of _that_ sort you'd join the army." He had no response to that particular pronouncement. "Does Atlanta have any culture?"

"God, no."

"Art or theatre?"

"No—barely any, especially now." His hackles were raised by the questioning, and she was secretly delighted that he had changed less than she thought.

"What about the red light district?"

"Every city's is the same, Maria. I daresay you've seen one whore, you've seen them all," was his rather biting answer to that question.

"Well, then, you must have made some very fine friends in Atlanta, to keep you going back so often. You must tell me about them." Very politely, she raised a napkin to her mouth and daintily wiped it.

"Yes, Maria, your suspicions are correct. There is a woman," he grimaced tiredly in verbal defeat, "And I, like all men, am a fool. I'm amazed that after seeing me for only one afternoon you should be able to see through me so easily."

"I'm sure if I hadn't known you before, I wouldn't have," she answered, smiling in triumph at her correct suspicions. "I'm interested in people and their lives—do tell me about her. You didn't mention a woman from Atlanta in your slew of women before, so I am very intrigued."

"What do you want to know?"

"Who she is, for one."

He sat up, very alert and actually rubbed his chin for a few moments in thought. Several emotions flitted across his dark features—amusement, irritation, lust, pride, cunning—something dark and something tender, too. She wondered if thinking about this woman was bringing all this to the surface.

"She's the widow I mentioned earlier—the one who married the man she didn't love. A Mrs. Charles Hamilton of Atlanta."

"You never struck me as the type to go after a widow," she said, in complete earnestness.

"Neither did I. She's not a typical widow, to her credit—she can't be any older than eighteen or nineteen at the most."

Eighteen or nineteen! This was a girl that had Rhett Butler coming back to a city, barely a woman. Who was she?

"She's quite young Rhett—I wonder if it's wise to hold an affair with such an undoubtedly naive girl."

He sighed heavily, in a self-derogatory manner.

"I'm not having an affair with her, Maria. I'm escorting her to dances and bringing her presents and driving her around in my carriage. And calling on her, of course—but I haven't even so much as kissed the girl." There was severe disappointment and frustration in his tone of voice, now.

Half of the words seemed to be more to himself than her—the more he talked about it, the more his careful façade crumbled.

"I'm confused—don't you want the girl?" Maria asked.

"I paid one hundred and fifty dollars in gold for the simple pleasure of dancing with her, Maria."

That answered the question more effectively than any other response he could have given. To pay that much for just a dance—and, she assumed, the chance to speak to the girl—spoke volumes. It was probably more than what he'd spent in every whorehouse he'd been in since the war began. But why had he not made more…direct advances?

"Well, haven't you tried to seduce her?" was her blunt question. From his earlier conversation, it seemed to be an effective strategy in gaining the notice of women. He was handsome, rich and charming—the ideal man for the temporary sort of affair his blockade running would entail.

"No—not really. She's in love with another man." The words were hollow.

"Has that ever stopped you before?"

"No, it never has, and I can't understand why in God's name it should matter now!" he exclaimed bitterly, fully losing his composure at last. He slammed his coffee cup down on the table loudly, and several other patrons of the establishment they were sitting in stared.

Maria found herself staring, as well. This was a different man in entirely than the one she'd been talking to for the last several hours—_that _man was completely composed, and this one was staring moodily at the table. She changed her tactics.

"What does she look like?"

The question was met with the smile of a man who knows he is lost and does not love himself for it.

"Dark hair, white skin, green eyes—pretty, but not the most beautiful girl I've ever met. Not as beautiful as you were, the first time I ever saw you."

A knowing smile—he was beginning to understand, wasn't he?

"She's charming, though, enough that it makes up for it—I've never seen a woman so naturally adept at playing men. The first day I ever saw her she had a swarm of them around her, each of them thinking she was in love with them and not the man she was trying to make jealous." He had a distinctly admiring look in his eyes. "I swore I would never tell anyone about our first meeting, but I will admit that it was after a rather passionate outburst I overheard that made me want her more than anything else."

She recalled how Rhett told her that he knew the moment he saw her that he was in love with her.

"So, it wasn't her face that caught you?"

"No. Though I did enjoy watching her play her game…"

He was somewhere else now, in a different place on a different day. She wondered if this woman was as calculating as he was.

"She must be very intelligent, to keep you interested."

"Not particularly. Certainly she has good common sense, and she cares about as little for the Confederacy's chances as I do." This was the first time Rhett had spoken at great lengths about her to anyone, and Maria's removal from the situation gave him more candor then he might have normally had. "You'd never in a million years catch her reading a book—she'd much dance and be complimented by men," he laughed, "Something I try to humor from time to time."

This woman was not a great beauty or a great brain…but she held his interest, and had for quite a while. There must be something else about her…there was a suspicion growing, deep in Maria's breast, that she knew _exactly_ what it was that made Rhett's eyes dance so.

"Why haven't you tried anything with her?"

His dark eyes did not entirely meet hers, and her suspicions grew.

"I don't know, I suppose because I know if I did I'd never have access to polite society again," the admission of sacrificing something came with some difficulty, "And I enjoy being around her. She is spoiled and selfish, I don't know myself sometimes what keeps me coming back except that I derive pleasure from seeing her. I've never been interested in a woman so disinterested in myself before."

"Who is the other man?"

His eyes hardened in an almost cruelly amused way.

"Her brother-in-law, a man of considerable honor and courage." The words oozed contempt. "He's a schoolgirl infatuation that she's let herself cling to from childhood—that's the only way I can explain it. I can't think of any man who'd suit her less than him."

"Are they having an affair?"

"Not while he's at the front, though I suspect he'll return at Christmas, and then, who knows?" He flung his cigar to the floor and crushed it under his foot. "I doubt it, though. He's got the best wife in the city, I don't think a pair of green eyes and white bosom are quite enough to make him stray. He's the type who the guilt would linger for."

In spite of the lightness with which he described the man, she could tell he was jealous. His companion could not understand why he would put himself through it, for it sounded like a hopeless case.

"Sometimes a woman just isn't interested, Rhett, no matter how attractive a man thinks he might be to her—"

"I've never been so certain in my life that a woman was suited to me. And I to her. I want her, badly, and I want her willingly," He said, with the absolute certainty that she guessed was his hallmark. His hands were tapping the table between them with impatience and irritation at his impotence in this matter. It was easy enough for a man of his strength to force himself on a woman, even seduce her to the point where she might be willing. It was quite something else for a man to bend an obstinate woman's will towards him, and she could see that Rhett wanted this woman as his and his alone. Why he wanted her, she could only guess.

"…She's like you, isn't she?" she asked, matter-of-factly. Wasn't that what Maria told him he needed, all those years ago? A woman with his will, his fire? But perhaps she'd miscalculated, maybe two people so alike in spirit would repel each-other like magnets or prove as destructive as a keg of gunpowder and a spark. Maybe she was presuming too much about the whole matter—who was she to presume to know this Mrs. Charles Hamilton?

"In that we're both immoral reprobates who go after what they want and devil with the consequences, yes. The difference is that I want her and she wants him." His tone was grim. "Every time I go to Atlanta, I convince myself that I won't go back again. But then—" He pulled a small package out of the inside of his coat, "—I find myself unconsciously looking for presents for her. Like that." He threw it roughly on the table.

Maria unwrapped the package to find a rather garish yellow shawl with bright purple and blue embroidering of birds on it.

"Interesting color," she remarked, dryly. In spite of being rather ridiculous, the shawl was of a high quality—she ran her hands over the fabric, trying to guess what it was—Egyptian cotton, maybe? Had he bought this from some piteous local trying to make a living or was it an import—the woman who received it would probably never be able to place its value, if it was as fine as she suspected. The design was too absurd to suggest good craftsmanship.

"It's garish, I know—it's a bit of a joke between us," he carefully wrapped it back up and tucked it away, neatly. "I've been trying to get her out of mourning by bringing her clothing of increasingly bright colors. I completely caught her when I brought a green silk bonnet from Paris this summer."

She remembered what he said about the inevitability of the South falling, and wondered if time as well as circumstance was against him. Would the arrangement he had in place now crumble, forcing him to make the same sort of choice she'd been forced to—walk away or go all in? Though he hadn't said anything about it, Maria guessed that he had not confessed love to this girl yet—an admission of weakness, something he would not risk in the high-stakes game that this was to him.

"What will you do when Atlanta falls?"

"Hopefully the Confederacy will have surrendered before that happens, or she'll have refuged in Macon or somewhere else. But if not…"

"Are you saying that you'd risk your own safety to keep her alive?"

She wondered if he remembered her asking the same question the last time they were together. If the memory was still there, it did not come immediately to his mind.

"Depends on your definition of risk. I've dealt with worse than fleeing a city that's been taken by an army—I'll get her out."

That was a _yes_—an indirect yes, but one all the same.

"Have you spent any sleepless nights since you met her?"

Again, he did not see what she was doing—but he was less flippant in his answer to this question.

"I'm loath to admit it—but yes, there've been a few nights on that ship, heading for Nassau, when less than pure thoughts about her have ailed me."

"How very romantic. Does she know that you want her?"

"I've made that abundantly clear to her on several occasions—her reaction alone was worth the risk of being thrown from her aunt's house. It's when her eyes flash at me and she threatens to call her father on me, I believe that's when I want her the most…" he trailed off. "But listen to me, prattling on about her like one of her ill-favored beaux. It's almost as if I'm—"

Abruptly he stopped the sentence short, face a forced, smooth blank again. Maria knew, then, what she'd had an inkling of all along. What she'd always expected to happen had—and in the most inopportune fashion for Rhett, who could not help but choose the rockiest and steepest mountain for himself to climb. He was a sadist for this sort of thing—challenge in any sphere of life. Challenge in matters of the heart was the most dangerous and more exhausting than any other, and more frustrating, she could see that written on his face. The situation was out of his control, his feelings and the woman's were shaped by something indefinable, something that he could not manipulate with certainty as he did everything else. He was hungry for this seemingly unattainable creature.

"Do you think you'd die for her?"

"I am struck with the most peculiar sense of déjà vu."

At last he remembered—his expression was knowing, resigned and nostalgic at the same time.

"Did you regret leaving me, the way you thought you would? Or did you realize that I was right about you?" she asked, for the first time bringing up their relationship. He thoughtfully considered the question.

"It took some time, but after a fashion I realized you were right. I wanted you to come with me because I couldn't really have you. Eventually, though, I saw that you were correct in your assertions about the two of us…we were too unalike to have ever made each other happy." He nodded to her in grateful deference.

"And this Mrs. Hamilton?"

"Is too _like_ me to not make me happy," he said, immediately. She couldn't help but laugh at his certainty.

"You haven't answered my question, yet."

"I think you can guess the answer."

"Ah, cariño …" she murmured her old pet name for him, half-fondly, half pitying. "You're in love."

His mouth was a hard, determined line—unamused, but his eyes danced with the promise of uncharted, perilous territory. His eyes, she knew, revealed just how dangerous the object he'd set his heart on really was, and Maria prayed for him that night because of them.

"Yes, damn me, I am."


	3. Atlanta, 1868

**Thanks to everyone who read a section of this/helped with sentence structure/listened to me whine about writers' block. Enjoy, and remember, I know when you favorite the story but don't review…I know.**

"Scarlett engaged again. Ashley, can you believe it?"

He could. He really could believe it—though he'd never gotten the impression that Scarlett enjoyed being married to either one of her first two husbands, he was not at all surprised that a man had wanted his feisty, irresistible sister-in-law enough to cajole her into becoming the third. That afternoon Scarlett informed the closest thing she had to a family in Atlanta of the engagement she'd kept secret for months.

"And to Captain Butler, of all people."

He felt something drop to the pit of his stomach. _To Captain Butler_…how soon after Scarlett was attacked and the notorious Rhett Butler saved all their necks had he proposed marriage to her? Scarlett was evasive on the subject, her eyes had darted from one side to the other when Melanie asked so naively, "You haven't been keeping us in the dark too long, have you, Scarlett dear?"

He remembered that Butler left soon after Frank died—the a few days later, he wagered, and that he was gone from Atlanta for nearly two months. Ashley never indulged in idle gossip himself, but everyone else he knew did—that was how he knew that Rhett Butler left town swiftly after the night of the Klan raid. Once he returned to Atlanta, he came and went just as he always did, lingering in the city perhaps a bit more than he had the previous year and a half. Whenever Ashley saw him, Rhett always shot him the most irritating looks—a mixture of casual disdain and ill-gotten triumph. Not that he saw Butler very often, the two men hardly traveled in the same circles, thank _God—_but even if they did, Ashley knew that the Rhett would never seek him out. Rhett Butler was suavely polite to everyone, but even so, Ashley felt dislike radiating from him whenever they were in the same room. It was something that his guilty conscience guessed the source of, had been suspicious of for months, and was cemented the night of the raid.

He would never forget the needlessly aggressive way that Butler hauled him to his feet that night, after he was wounded. He was drifting in and out of consciousness from the lost blood, but the harsh words his 'savior' muttered into his ear could not be easily mistaken or forgotten.

"It'd be so easy to put us both out of our misery, do you know that? I could shoot you and no one would be the wiser—but no, then you'd be a martyr to her, sacrificed on the cross of her non-existent honor."

He fell unconscious after that, so if Butler said anything further he would never know.

And now Scarlett was marrying this man—but why she was he could not be sure. He ashamedly knew the reason she married both her husbands, and he blamed himself for both unions. Charles she married to make him jealous, he suspected it at the time and had his belief confirmed on his furlough. Frank she married for the money to pay the taxes on Tara, something he could not help but feel guilty for. He could do nothing for her, he was incapable of raising the money—he blamed himself for her unhappy second marriage.

But Rhett Butler—he was an altogether different story. Scarlett no longer needed Butler's money, even if she once came to Atlanta with the express purpose of getting it. He'd only ever heard his childhood friend insult the infamous blockade runner—but they were also often spotted driving to the mills together, and Melanie's matronly friends often whispered in Aunt Pitty's parlor about the friendship between Captain Butler and Scarlett Kennedy. They made the word _friendship_ sound unclean, with the way they muttered about the untoward behavior between a married woman and a man of dubious reputation—and now that the two were engaged, he could only imagine how tongues would wag.

He said nothing to Scarlett that afternoon about his misgivings—nothing at all, for truly, what right had he to? What claim did he have, truly? It would be the sheerest hypocrisy to try and deny her the freedom to marry, no matter how often he thought about the last time he held her in his arms, over two years before.

Sometimes, when he would lie awake next to Melanie, sleep never coming as easily as it did before the war, he would think back to that day in January—his guilty heart incapable of repressing the memory of how those red lips had stood out against the dreary gray that his world, _their_ world had become. He allowed himself to recall how she'd felt in his arms—the way that just touching her, holding her for those few stolen moments had transferred some of her life-giving force to him—as though he had even a tenth of her will and spirit beating below his breast, and not his shimmering, faint presence, growing dimmer with every passing day since the last barbeque at Twelve Oaks. Scarlett was life personified—everything beautiful and terrible about humanity was reflected in those green eyes. She was to him as the sirens were to Ulysses. He'd tied himself to the 'mast' of Tara and now suffered the agony of being near enough to hear her plaintive cry, but incapable of doing anything about it.

The ropes had slipped that day, though, because his hazy world was dead and buried and Scarlett was _real_. She was alive and warm in front of him, the only thing of beauty left from his former life and he clung to her—if only to affirm that such a life had once existed. When everything in his life was an indistinct, glittering dream Scarlett had been too sharp, too in focus. He saw her infatuation with him, appreciated her beauty more than he wanted to admit—but he could never bring himself to factor her into his plans for the future. Melanie was his ideal woman, she was what he pictured in Twelve Oaks. She would run the house gently, with elegance and womanly grace that Scarlett, for all her charms, lacked. She was unrefined, unpolished and would suit Brent Tarleton's wild ways far better than his own. Scarlett was too coarse and spirited, too like her father—like a wild horse, to be admired for what it was but never ridden. Now, since he'd returned from war and death and starvation to the merciless toil of survival, he was seeing her with new eyes and new admiration. Scarlett stood out against the wasteland as testament to sheer force of will. She always shined before the War seemingly effortlessly, her belle status was proof of that. Now though, now that civilization had toppled over and left a pile of wreckage in its wake, she was all the more bright, all the more remarkable. While her light was glaring before the War, it was now a guiding beacon to everyone at Tara, he included.

To have her in front of him, declaring absolute devotion was too heady—he was only human, only a _man_, not the God her words would suggest, and the temptation to take what was offered drove him to kiss her.

She _did _transfer some of her life force to him that day—he had kissed her because he wanted her, badly, not because it was his right or privilege. He became like her, taking what he wanted, the devil with the consequences—only the traits that were so admirable in Scarlett were, in him, disgusting and filled him with both self-loathing and some other, wholly primitive feeling. For a man who loved art and poetry and civilization, the feelings that such a woman instilled in him were almost frightening. There was nothing refined about what he wanted to do to her, what had taken all his willpower to prevent himself from doing.

And yet he could not help himself from looking on it with regret for what did not happen between them—but what could have.

"Ashley, dear, you haven't said a word since we got home—are you feeling quite alright?"

Melanie's sincere concern brought him out of his deep musings with a start.

"I'm sorry, dear, I was just…" he trailed off, "…lost in my thoughts. What was it you said?"

"I said that you didn't say a word to congratulate Scarlett on her engagement. I thought you were quite rude." This was about as chiding as Melanie ever got—and she was quite right, he'd barely said anything when Scarlett told them all of her upcoming nuptials.

"Melly, I'm…concerned about Scarlett," he sighed heavily and sat down on the bed, "Rhett Butler has a very bad reputation, and I don't think she should be marrying a man she knows so little of."

"But Scarlett knows Captain Butler _very_ well, darling. He used to come and call on us all the time during the war—and he would always escort Scarlett to dances and socials," She sat next to her husband, struck by his heartfelt concern for her dear sister, "She's just the sort of woman who can't stay unmarried for very long—I'm surprised Captain Butler didn't ask her to marry him before." She gently placed a hand on Ashley's shoulder, rubbing him soothingly, "As for what he's supposedly done, I am certain that it's not so. He always acted a complete gentleman to us, I'll never forget when he retrieved my wedding ring for me after I gave it up for the Cause—and he saved you and all the rest of the boys! He _must_ be a gentleman."

Melanie said it with such naive certainty that her husband, not for the first time, wondered how she made it through an entire upheaval of their way of life with her innocence completely intact. _Scarlett_…it was brave Scarlett who had kept Melanie so safe and sheltered, just as he asked her to. It was through the intercession of courageous Scarlett that Beau was kept alive when he was born, that Beau had been sheltered and ate.

"_Oh, Ashley, I'd—I'd do anything for you!"_

He blanched at the vivid memory, and, lying to Melanie about why he'd turned white, left the house, citing 'needing a bit of fresh air' as his reason. He decided to take a walk. He was not a man who often roamed the streets at night, preferring the pleasures of Dante or Sophocles to Atlanta after hours. Tonight, though…he needed to think, and he always felt guilty thinking about Scarlett in any capacity when he was lying next to his wife, who considered the woman he was unfaithful with in his fantasies her sister.

The former Major in the army of the Confederacy scarcely noticed where he was walking, so engrossed was he in his thoughts.

He let his mind drift to Rhett Butler, the man he met the same day his engagement to Melanie was announced, the same day Scarlett told him she loved him, only a few days after Fort Sumter was fired on and their lives were irrevocably changed. He disliked the older man's manners from the first, the arrogance with which he spoke of the Confederacy's chances was gallingly rude, but he knew the words were the truth. Butler was no fool. He was intelligent—obviously educated, from good Southern stock, but he rejected it all in his youth and still managed to accrue more wealth than he probably would have inherited anyway, from what Ashley understood of his past. None of his money was made in an honest way, of course—making his way down the rain soaked streets, he thought of Scarlett traipsing off to Atlanta in her green poitiers dress. Scarlett had made her money in 'an honest way'—of a sort. She did what she had to in order to secure the money for Tara, the plantation he was certain, deep down, she loved far more than she did him. She'd fought for it, that was for certain.

There were some people who could survive and flourish, no matter what the circumstances—and then there were people like _him_.

The night was a balmy and wet spring weather, clouds blowing about the sky swiftly and casting strange shadows on the moon. The rain that marked the day earlier was now subsided, but Ashley, as he walked down the miserable streets of the city he never wanted to live in the first place, was certain it would start again. The problem of the rain would be a nice distraction from the more complex struggles he grappled with every night.

The National loomed in front of him now, the newly renovated structure making him feel all the more old and worn down. The night was mild, in spite of the light rain earlier, and there was a bustle of people coming in and out of the hotel, even at this late hour—just past midnight. Most of the folks were fashionably dressed and quite gay, and Ashley found their shrill laughter jarring, even grating. Clearly most of them were Northerners or speculators, that was the only explanation for their expensive clothing and having the means to stay at a place like the National in the first place.

_When was the last time I heard people laughing?_ _Honest, good laughter?_

He closed his eyes and could see them all in his mind's eye, the Fontaines, the Calverts, the Monroes…Boyd Tarleton, whom he'd always gotten along well with, Brent and Stuart, Tom—they were all at Twelve Oaks. It was the Christmas of 1860—Melanie and Charles were visiting, too. There was flirting and merriment, Twelve Oaks had always been beautiful in the winter months. The tree was the largest they'd ever had, nearly twelve feet tall, and it stood in the main foyer of Twelve Oaks, graceful and tall, a testament to everything the Wilkes family loved in life. His mother, he was certain, would have loved that tree. The O'Haras were there, too, that Christmas. Little Carreen, barely 13, besotted with Brent Tarleton who could not take his eyes off her older sister, sullen Suellen…and Scarlett. _Scarlett_ stood out to him, her gay laughter a clear bell, he could hear it in his head over everything else…

"What brings you out so late, Mr. Wilkes?"

Scarlett's laughter ceased immediately as Ashley realized who was standing in front of him. He'd been so lost in his wistful imaginings of happier days that he must not have noticed Rhett Butler coming out of the hotel. Faintly annoyed, Ashley wondered how long Butler had been standing there, watching him—he was leaning against the building with an almost bored but still slightly amused look on his face.

"Forgive me, Captain Butler, for not noticing you, I was lost in my thoughts," he could barely conceal the wistful tone in his voice, "Good evening."

"Very good, I expect—I was just going out to enjoy it," he replied, blandly, "I see you've already been enjoying it for some time."

He suddenly stood up straight, leaning away from the building and revealing his full height. Butler was tall—taller than him, Ashley faintly noticed, and he was broad-shouldered and well-built. He was the only man Ashley ever knew that seemed as though he would be just as much at home in the Paris Opera House as he would in the Roman Coliseum or on a pirate ship. While everything from his accent to his shoes reeked of taste and class, there was always a sense of irony in what he said—as if the disdainfully polite man in front of him was acting a part for no sake but his own amusement.

"Yes I—" he started awkwardly, as Butler coolly surveyed him, "It's very…pleasant out." Even while he spoke the faint patter of spring rain washed over his words, nearly drowning him out.

"Pleasant is, I'm sure, your preferred sort of evening, Mr. Wilkes," he answered, smoothly. The remark was innocuous in itself; it was the non-committal sort of comment that men of their acquaintance would make. From Butler's mouth, though, there was some underlying insult, some hidden barb swimming just out of reach. Ashley couldn't pinpoint it precisely, but the way he raised his eyebrow while saying the word 'pleasant' was almost _challenging_.

"Why yes, I suppose it is," was his answer, said with more strength. Butler's eyes glittered even in the dark underneath the impressive hotel, an eerie bright spot in the darkness. An awkward silence fell over the two men, until Ashley finally said, in a stiff, formal tone, "May I be among the first to congratulate you on your engagement?"

Rhett Butler stepped out of the shadow he'd been half hiding in, for the first time his expression clear, revealed in the moonlight newly freed from behind the sparse clouds. His face, the younger man was surprised to see, bore not the usual calculated, shrewd or impudently bored look he saw on it every other time they met.

Instead an unaffected, maliciously _gleeful_ grin greeted his eyes, every one of Butler's straight white teeth visible against the darkness of his skin and clothing, showing up brilliantly against the oddly changeable night.

"My sincerest thanks. You're the first to congratulate me, if you can believe it." His eyes were narrowed, not meeting the rather insincere smirk on his smug face. Not for the first time, Ashley wondered how much he knew.

"Come on, Butler, I thought you'd offered to pay for all of our drinks!" One of the well-dressed men lingering outside of the hotel, about 15 feet away from where Ashley was standing, called. They were Northern in accent—some of his wealthier friends, perhaps Yankee officers, three or four of them, each with a tawdry looking woman attached at the hip. The girls were swaying in a drunken fashion, clear proof that the group of people plying Butler for more liquor had no need for it.

Ashley was certain that he'd never seen a more dreadfully distasteful sight in his whole life. Rhett Butler just laughed, turning back to them and issuing a wry salute. Ashley could not see the face that accompanied his next words.

"I pride myself, Dick, on my generosity, but don't you think questioning it after four rounds is a bit much?" He waved them off, "Go on, I promise to pay tomorrow if it will get you off my back."

"You'll pay every night until you marry that spitfire little widow of yours, Butler—I can see it now," The man crudely shot back as he and his party stumbled off to the next stop on their train ride of debauchery. "I've got to make the most of your 'genorosity' before you're bored with her!"

He and the other men howled with laughter, and Ashley felt his fist clench in anger—anger at Scarlett being held in such contempt by people so decidedly below her, and anger at his inability to do anything about it. Standing behind Butler, the dark-haired man's face still concealed from him, he could see a subtle change in body language. The good Captain, so easy to compare to a jungle cat—his hackles raised, and his broad shoulders tensed up at the words. When he turned back to Ashley, his face was marred with a self-effacing disgust.

"No matter how much time I spend up North," he said, his eyes coldly amused, "I never get used to their accents." His face was a blank mask, the remark irrelevant. Ashley found the longer the conversation went on the less steady he ground he was standing on was. Rhett Butler had a way of setting him off-balance effortlessly. "You went to school up north, didn't you, Mr. Wilkes? Have you ever gotten used to them?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"I went to the University of Virginia."

"I was under the impression you attended Harvard, like your cousin. My mistake," he replied, unapologetically.

Rhett Butler was not the type of man to make such a presumption. Ashley was certain that he'd made the remark solely for the purpose of irritation—he didn't know why such an assumption should annoy him, but it did.

"I may not have gone to school up north, but I did visit New York and Boston several times before the War…and no, sir, I can't say I ever have gotten used to their accents."

England, France, Italy, New York…even Butler's Charleston accent was strange to him, on some level.

"Come inside the hotel and have a drink with me." Ashley held up his hands, but before he could protest, Rhett cut him off, "It's on me—besides, you look like you need it. The rain is getting heavier, it'd be better to wait for it to let up with something warm in you."

Seeing no polite way to rebuff him, Ashley Wilkes followed Rhett Butler through the archway and into the National Hotel's elaborate lobby. Next to the restaurant was the hotel's bar, where the two men ended up, side by side.

"Evening, Johnny," said Butler to the bartender, a freckly red-headed man about the same age as Ashley, "I'll have a the usual—Aberlour, neat. And for Mr. Wilkes—?" He turned, questioning, to his reluctant drinking partner.

"I'll have scotch," he said firmly to the bartender, not playing Butler's game of ordering an impressive vintage, "On the rocks."

"Make Mr. Wilkes's a double, Johnny," said Rhett, right before the bartender turned around to start making the drinks, "He's had some bad news today."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wilkes," he said, sympathetically.

"I—"

The man had already gone back to retrieve the Aberlour whiskey, leaving Ashley no time to formulate a response to he caustic remark. He turned back to Butler, who was wearing another self-satisfied look.

"So, Scarlett told you today?" Johnny slide them the drinks from the other end of the bar, and Butler caught his and downed it with a flourish.

"Yes."

"Who was with you?"

"Aunt Pitty, Melanie, Ella and Wade—she told us all this afternoon."

Understanding passed over Rhett's face.

"_Ah_—that explains it."

"Explains what?" he asked, stiffly, drinking his own liquor carefully, with care.

"Why you look so dower—well, part of it, anyway. Since Ms. Melly and Pitty were there when she told you, you had no chance to give her your misgivings."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he sniffed.

"I'm sure you do, but that's immaterial." He grinned and gestured at the bartender to get him another drink. "How did Pitty react to the news? Did she threaten to faint?"

He gave a small smile in response to the query.

"Scarlett didn't give her the chance to." She almost had, though, until Scarlett snapped at her to pull herself together.

"No doubt your wife extolled my virtues to you," he said off-handedly, drinking his second whiskey, this time more slowly, "Mrs. Wilkes could see the good in death row inmates." The sincerity in Rhett's voice was obvious, and Ashley found the compliment, coming from such an obvious cynic, distinctly odd. He felt his heart swell too, though, because if there was anyone on this earth that deserved a compliment, it was his Melly.

"She has assured me that you are, despite rumors to the contrary, a gentleman."

"Proof that even the brightest of young woman can be woefully misinformed." He seemed to delight in his own vice and shortcomings. Ashley was told that Butler, during the war, often made a point of saying how little he cared about the outcome, as long as he walked away with a profit. This same man had joined the army, though, according to Scarlett…he was a mass of contradictions.

"So, Mr. Wilkes, I know that Ms. Pittypat is shocked—unsurprising—and your wife is certain my oft-reported vice is all a grave misunderstanding. But I hear none of your thoughts on the matter—what do _you_ make of it?" he asked, as if they were having a mild discussion on the recent bad weather and not a conversation about his pending marriage.

"I only want what's best for Scarlett," he said, carefully, and Butler actually had the audacity to _laugh aloud_.

"_You're_ concerned with her well-being?"

There was as much accusation in it as there was disbelief.

"Of course I am."

"Then, pray explain to me why you allowed her to marry her first two husbands?" he asked, smoothly.

"Who Scarlett married was none of my concern—"

"Spare me whatever gentlemanly platitude you have lined up, and have another drink," he roughly shoved another shot of whiskey down the bar (Johnny was familiar with Rhett's drinking habits, apparently), but his companion took it quite willingly this time. "I can understand you letting her marry Frank Kennedy, she did that while you were still at Tara—thought I'm sure you knew she'd come to me for that money first."

He did know. He'd known all along what Scarlett was going to do when she left the farm, but this was the first actual confirmation he'd had of what he suspected. The shame he felt was caused by an admission from, ironically enough, Rhett Butler himself.

"Frank, as we both know, was for money. Scarlett's above all a practical woman, I doubt you could have convinced her otherwise once she made up her mind about having old Frank. It's Charles Hamilton I'm wondering about—why the hell you let a girl of no more than seventeen marry your cousin, who you knew she neither loved nor had any chance of happiness with, is a quandary quite beyond me."

"You don't know that there was no chance of happiness between them—Charles loved her," Ashley shot back with surprising sharpness, knowing full well the other man was right, "How much of this has Scarlett told you, and how much of it is from your own…deductions?" He had always been able to hold his liquor well, but Butler seemed to be producing it from nowhere, and every free drink he shoved at Ashley he took. The more he drank, the bolder the usually reserved man became.

"I haven't been her willing confidante, if that's what you're asking. I've had to pry the truth out of her, but over the years I've made a pretty clear picture of it. Scarlett's an easy read—but about Charles Hamilton—"

"If you must know, I _did_ try to convince him not to go through with it," This was none of Rhett Butler's business, really, but Butler made him feel on-edge and defensive. His eyes were bleary, too—how many had he had?

"Oh? How?" He shot back, as the conversation picked up speed.

"I told him I thought it was too fast, that he ought to wait—he absolutely refused to budge, though, and Melanie encouraged him. She's always liked Scarlett, even before she married Charles."

"Well, she and Scarlett do share some…_things_," was his nasty rebuttal, the allusion meant to be obvious, "But tell me, ye who claims to care, don't you think telling him it was you and not he she was so besotted with might have convinced him not to marry Scarlett?"

The question had the triple effect of being rude, well phrased, and devastatingly correct at its core, in spite of the impropriety of its utterer. Did Scarlett tell him about her short courtship with Charles, how he had stood by and watched her give herself away to a man he knew, without a doubt, she did not love?

"Charles was totally enamored with her, it was the first time I'd ever seen him assert himself about anything. I didn't have the heart to crush his hopes that way."

"Didn't have the heart to? But you had no qualms about allowing Scarlett to shackle herself to a man she didn't love indefinitely."

"If you think me so low, sir, I wonder what you gain by inviting me for a drink." Ashley watched Rhett knock another one back and tried not to imagine this impressively large man with Scarlett, on Scarlett's arm, kissing her… "From the way Scarlett spoke about you at Tara, it seems you've done your fair share of failing her as well. Did you not leave her on the road to Jonesboro?"

His conversational sparring partner's eyes lowered to the drink in his hand. Unless Ashley was mistaken, Rhett Butler was weighing the validity of the point.

"You're right—I did," he conceded finally, "I never claimed to be sinless, though—I hear of your vaulted sainthood enough to almost believe you had fashioned the myth and not Scarlett." His good humor returned, and Ashley did not find he had the strength to dwell on the man's words or give his cryptic barbs a great deal of thought. He was worried about where such musings would lead.

"I'm bothering you with all my vulgar talk of morality, I'll stop. I keep forgetting I'm in a such a good mood." He smiled self-indulgently and took out his gold pocket watch to check the time leisurely. "You've known Scarlett longer than I have, tell me, Mr. Wilkes—where do you think she'd like to go on her honeymoon?" Innocently asked, Ashley felt the full impact and intent of the question like a punch to the stomach. For the first time, he felt honest-to-goodness jealousy when thinking of Scarlett with another man—even with every beaux she'd had as a young belle, even with her previous two husbands, he'd never felt so threatened by a man in Scarlett's life.

He was now facing a real rival for Scarlett's affections. Scarlett was willful and bullheaded, Butler would encourage her in her hoyden behavior until there was nothing left of the girl with the passion for living who claimed he held her heart. Butler wasn't good for Scarlett, he would just discard her when he found something new to chase, and Ashley would be left with a broken shell. Scarlett, and, he realized obliquely, her misguided feelings for him, were one of the few things he had left over from the old days.

He wanted to hold onto them and her, desperately, even while knowing that it would be good for neither of them.

"I'm not sure where Scarlett would enjoy going, I'm certain she'd like anywhere you picked," he answered noncommittally. He tried not to picture Scarlett on her honeymoon with Butler, but treacherous imagination that God gave him, he could not help it. Scarlett and Rhett were an attractive pair, they looked well together—he could see them dressed in the type of clothing Butler wore every day, expensive dinner wear, out at a restaurant, at the theater…going back to a hotel room.

He swallowed hard.

"You don't think Paris or London would make a difference?" Rhett queried, almost coyly, "I almost considered Venice, but I'm not sure she'd care for all the water."

"You would go all the way to Europe for your honeymoon?" Extravagant, to say the least. Even in their heyday most people did not splurge so brazenly on a honeymoon trip—somewhere far nearer was generally deemed more appropriate for a young bride. Trips to Europe were saved for gentleman, for the Grand Tour—not that Southern women never saw Europe, but it was more unusual.

"I considered it, but I decided I would rather go somewhere by train than boat. I don't want to wait that long to get her in a hotel room."

Ashley slammed his glass down onto the counter and rose, intending to leave this time, truly. With surprising swiftness Rhett grabbed his arm and held him, immobile on his stool.

"Have I touched a nerve?" he asked, softly. There was a dangerous glint in his dark, slightly narrowed eyes. Ashley found himself lowering slowly back into his seat.

"If there's something you have to say to me, Captain Butler, I wish you would just say it," he returned, to which said Butler raised one eyebrow, clearly impressed. "I'm tired of these mind games."

"There are a great deal of things I would _like_ to say to you, Mr. Wilkes, but I daresay some of them will keep. Satisfy my curiosity on one more point and I promise never to accost you on the street again—you have my word as a gentleman." He smiled at some private joke. "I was wondering if you'd at all thought about why Scarlett is marrying me."

The look on Ashley's face must have confirmed his beliefs, because Rhett looked positively delighted. How had he known that that very thought had been brewing in his head before coming into the National? That all day he had been wondering if Scarlett's affections had been transferred to someone else…but no, after the way she cajoled him into working at the mills, they couldn't have—or could they?

"Ah—I see the thought has crossed your mind. Well, let me set your mind at rest and tell you why the woman whose love you squander and body you covet is walking down the aisle for a third time—" Taking it from his inner pocket with the unnecessary bravado only competition between inebriated males can bring, he slammed a one hundred dollar bill onto the counter in between them.

"—Cold, hard cash."

Ashley stared at it. Such a huge sum of money—he would probably never hold a bill that large in his life again, except perhaps in some transaction for the mills. And here was Butler, who could throw it down on a table at the bar like it was worth as much as the paper it was printed on. Rhett Butler laughed at the shock he was not bothering to mask.

"So you needn't bother worrying about your precious allusions being shattered—her schoolgirl infatuation is as alive as it ever was," he laughed darkly, "Scarlett is marrying me for my money. I intend to give her everything her greedy little heart has ever wanted, which no doubt will be, in her shrewd mind, more substantial than every pretty word you've ever spouted at her." Every word was brimming with the confidence of a man who is certain they've won—or orchestrating the most convincing high-stakes bluff in history.

Rhett Butler was far away now, his face held a pensive, imaginative quality that, if Ashley had ever seen himself, he would recognize as one of his own expressions. What sort of future was Butler imagining, he wondered? The man's true motivations were obscured, he was an enigma to be sure—for a split second Ashley wondered if Rhett had fallen in love with Scarlett was well, before he dismissed it as impossible. A man like that didn't fall in love.

Just as soon as he'd gone into it, Rhett Butler came out of his reverie with a snap and assumed his usual puzzling, polished manners. He called over Johnny to their section of the bar from what he was doing, and handed him the hundred-dollar bill. The bartender accepted it, flabbergasted.

"Here, consider this payment for my whole tab this evening and every evening for the foreseeable future—and take as big a tip from the leftovers as you want, Johnny." The young and impressionable man thanked him profusely. Ashley, still sitting there, wondered again at the contradictions the man before him seemed to be made of.

"You can remain and drink to your heart's desire, Mr. Wilkes—I'm sure my money can pay for whatever else you might need." Rhett rose, still immaculate in spite of the whiskey on his breath, and bowed. "I believe I'll follow your example and take a walk-about—it sounds as though the rain's let up." The bar was totally silent now, the last few stragglers having left a long time ago, leaving the two men the sole proprietors of the establishment.

Looking back at the conversation later, Ashley would realize how very little of Butler's hand had been revealed to him—every question had been asking for confirmation of suspicions, as well, which left Ashley wondering if either one of the men had walked away from the table with anything they hadn't walked in with.

Rhett made his way purposefully across the bar, to the very edge of where it met the restaurant, before he turned around again.

"You really didn't try to convince her not to go through with it?"

Ashley blinked.

"…No, I didn't."

"But you wanted to? You still might try?" he persisted, putting his wide-brimmed panama hat back on, eyes still focused intently on the end of the bar he'd vacated a moment before. Ashley looked up, directly in the eyes of his opponent—he was a coward in many ways, but this would not be one of them.

"From what you've told me, it wouldn't make a difference if I did," he responded, wearily. He felt, if it was possible, even older after this exchange.

"All the same, now that you know, I'd better set a date. I don't want you getting a chance alone with her to 'express your concerns'." The words were directed more at himself than at Ashley, and they were shrewd and calculating—they had the distinct tone of one who was formulating a plan.

"You really think it will make a difference?"

"No, but one never can be too sure," he said, raising his hat in a farewell salute. "If there's anyone who might convince Scarlett to turn me away, it's you—you'd probably talk her out of it better than she could."

And with that, he laughed and walked out. The next time Ashley saw him would be his wedding to Scarlett, a little more than a month later.

He finished his drink and left the bar a short time after Rhett, lingering in the hotel foyer in the hope of not running into the other man again. He stepped out onto the wet sidewalk (the rain had let up, after all) and began to make his way back to his house on Ivy Street, and his wife.

_If there's anyone who might convince Scarlett to turn me away, it's you_.

Rhett Butler's last words echoed in his head, and as memorable as the entire exchange was, unique to their acquaintance, he found the end was the one that came back to him again and again. Contemplative, he slowly trudged home, wondering if the power to influence Scarlett really belonged to anyone. He thought of how well she'd taken care of Melanie after he asked her to, which left him to wonder if that was the extent of his ability…

Butler only spoke the truth with him; he was not so self-deluded that he couldn't recognize that. Even arrogant Rhett Butler, who was marrying Scarlett, grudgingly admitted that he had power.

Those words would remain with him longer than even he realized. If Rhett Butler knew the inadvertent weapon he'd handed Ashley Wilkes, he would have slipped something far more potent than whiskey into his glass.


End file.
